NPR Debuts Joe Henry's 'Reverie' This Week
NPR.ORG will be streaming the captivating new album Reverie by acclaimed musician and producer JOE HENRY this week October 3 - 11 as part of their "First Listen" series. The album is set for release this October 11th via Anti- Records. Listen to the stream here. HENRY will be performing a special show in Los Angeles on October 11th at Largo where he will play Reverie in its entirety.
HENRY is a revered solo artist with 12 critically heralded albums to his credit including 2009's masterful Blood From Stars. He is also a multi Grammy winning producer with credits that include Solomon Burke's 2002 album Don't Give Up On Me, which won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album as well as works by esteemed artists such as Bettye LaVette, Mose Allison, Allen Toussaint, Aimee Mann and additional Grammys for Best Traditional Folk Album with the 2010 album Genuine Negro Jig by the Carolina Chocolate Dropsand Best Traditional Blues Album for Ramblin' Jack Elliott's 2010 A Stranger Here.
Reverie is a beautifully raw and raucous affair created when HENRY and his fellow musicians convened in HENRY's basement studio for days of exploration. The great guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello) then added "his particular and wiry racquet" and there was some additional lost-world underscoring from singer Jean McClain, and a brief soliloquy by Patrick Warren's pump organ. The final touch occurred when the song "Piano Furnace" was sent to Dublin so singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan, for whom HENRY had just produced an album, could illuminate a few words with her indelible spirit.
Advance Critical Acclaim For JOE HENRY's Reverie:
"Henry's really upped the ante here. Reverie is a mesmeric, all-acoustic invocation of its title, creaky old acoustic guitars, yellowed piano ivory and the rattle and thump of bandaged-sounding drums conjuring a late-night jam at the junk shop." - Mojo
"An all acoustic work from one of America's best songwriters (not to mention finest producers)" - New York Daily News
"His twelfth album sounds wonderful. Stirring and impressive." - Uncut
"On Reverie, he rasps his way through twangy, imagistic songs; the instruments are unplugged but they kick." - New York Times